by Nick Pirog
Driving home I started to think, what if this is no longer a game to Tristen? What if I’d gotten too close and now it was every man for himself? The last four bodies would be saved or lost within the next fifty-six hours. Tristen Grayer liked to go out with a bang. Would this year be any different? In fifty-six hours would Alex, Caitlin, and Lacy all be dead?
Not a chance. I would keep the castle safe from the inside and let the FBI ward off any attack from the street.
Alex, Lacy, and Caleb started cooking dinner and I spent a half hour on the phone with Gleason. I informed him I searched both Caitlin’s and Conner’s and both were vacant. He couldn’t hide the fear in his voice. We went through every possible scenario and by the end of the phone call I was sick to my stomach. Gleason and Gregory would be stationed outside in the next couple hours and this did nothing to pacify any of my fears. I wasn’t scared for the four of us. I was scared for Caitlin.
Chapter 50
I woke up with my head on the kitchen table, my finger white against the trigger of my .45. I scanned the kitchen for bullet holes, but it appeared I hadn’t suffered a single body jerk during REM.
Lacy and Caleb were still sleeping when I peeked in Lacy’s bedroom, and Alex was sawing logs next to Baxter in my bed. I checked the clock, 8:55 A.M., less than twelve hours until the next woman was killed. I was no longer thinking in terms of a generic woman, I was thinking in terms of Caitlin.
I peered through the bedroom window and saw the overcast sky steadily weeping a light drizzle. I grabbed my running shoes, some sweats, my University of Washington hoody, and walked out into the crisp morning air. A tightly formed unit of geese flew overhead, the cold arctic Canadian air stowed in their down feathers.
Gleason and Gregory were parked across the street and I jogged over to their black Caprice. Gleason rolled down the driver side window and asked, “What’s up?”
“I was going to ask you the same question. You get hold of Caitlin or Conner?”
He shook his head grimly, “No luck. I’ve tried calling them every fifteen minutes for the last eight hours.”
I made eye contact with Gregory, and yes we did nauseate one other, but we were still in this heaping pile of shit together. “What do you think?”
He shook his head, “I think we need to find those eyes.”
For the first time since I’d met the little shit, we were on the same page. I told them I’d be back in an hour and set out in a steady pace toward town, contemplating my playmate Todd Gregory. It hurts to say this, but he wasn’t as bad as I make him out. He’s quasi-bad. After looking into his eyes, I knew he hadn’t given the story to Alex Tooms. He wanted Tristen Grayer brought down and divulging inside information was not an option. Now, with Gregory’s name scratched from the list, I didn’t have a name.
On the other side of the coin, Alex had the name. Soon as would I.
I was drenched by the time I made it to town, but I was glad to see I hadn’t made the trip in vain; Benny was open for business. Gleason and Gregory weren’t in the car when I returned and I hoped they were both taking bowel movements and not moving bowels.
I pushed through the front door and saw Caleb, Lacy, Gleason, and Gregory milling around the kitchen with coffee mugs in hand. I handed everyone a burrito, and even received a, Gee thanks, Thomas, from my comrade Todd.
I took a bite, savoring the delicious sausage, egg, potato and green chili, and asked, “Is Alex still sleeping?”
Caleb looked up, “Nope. She’s gone.”
I ran upstairs and checked the bed, but it appeared as though Alex had flown the coop. I tried her cell, house, and Waterville Tribune extension, but didn’t get an answer. Great, now Caitlin and Alex were missing.
Gleason made some calls and issued an APB on Alex’s plates while I saddled up in the Range Rover and headed towards her house.
I pulled through the gate and saw her Jeep parked in her usual spot. I knocked three times and nothing happened. I tried the door. Locked. Then I ran around back and climbed over the small brick wall enclosing her terrace. I tried the back door. Again, locked. I pulled out my credit card and held it between my left thumb and forefinger, then kicked the door violently with my right foot. The wood splintered and I left a note for Alex to buy a new door with my credit card.
I canvassed the house quickly for Alex’s body. I entered Alex’s study last. The room looked like a stage set for Act III rather than a tame study. Two rows of books were overturned on the wooden floor, a love seat was on its back, and there was a small puddle of blood between the desk and the front door.
I touched the blood with my fingertip, it had just began to harden and had presumably been there less than an hour. How stupid had Alex been? Why had she come back here? She knew the danger. Whap.
I went behind her desk and opened the bottom drawer, which played home to envelopes and stamps. I tried the top drawer and was rewarded with a stack of computer paper. I checked all the other drawers and didn’t come across it. Wait, Alex had done something odd the first time she’d retrieved it. I pulled open the top drawer and felt around underneath the wood. Bingo.
There was a false level and I slid out Alex’s tape recorder.
I hopped on her desk and hit the play button with my thumb. A male’s voice said a half syllable and the tape ceased spinning. The lone syllable sent chills up my spine and I noticed tall goose bumps had formed on my forearms. I let the tape rewind then pushed play. The tape rolled in silence, then began:
Alex: Take your time. Detail is the key.
John Doe: At around nine-thirty or so Thomas Prescott made a huge break. He figured out the victim’s eyes from each previous murder were actually seeing where the next murder would occur.
Alex: What do you mean, “Were actually seeing where the next murder would occur?” Can you elaborate?
John Doe: The first victim’s eyes were nailed to the wall of Lacy Prescott’s room. The eyes were positioned directly at a wall mirror hanging near Lacy’s bed. The eyes would see the reflected image of a lighthouse painting hanging on her wall. So in a sense Jennifer Pepper’s eyes saw Ashley Andrews would be killed at a lighthouse.
Alex: (Gasp) You’re right. Then the eyes on the lens of the lighthouse saw Kellon would be killed on Thomas’s boat.
John Doe: Exactly. Then Kellon’s eyes were found attached to the two fishing poles at the back of Thomas’ boat cast into the Atlantic. They saw Kim Welding would be killed where the Atlantic meets Thomas Prescott, which sadly is the bluff he plummeted off almost exactly one year ago.
I hit the stop button.
I hadn’t told anyone about Kellon’s other eye. Only that her one eye had been baited on my one fishing pole. The only way John Doe would have known both of Kellon’s eyes had been on separate poles was if he was the one who’d baited the hooks. I leaned my head back and thought back to when I’d showed them the eye on the boat and he’d asked, “Where’s the other one?”
I hadn’t thought it strange at the time.
John Doe was Conner Dodds.
Chapter 51
I wasn’t sure what role Conner played in the killings, but I knew he was an active participant. He hadn’t even been at the scene of Kim Welding’s murder. He hadn’t been briefed of our eye theory. Conner may not be the killer but he was unquestionably in contact with Tristen Grayer. This would explain why Tristen knew our every move. I popped the tape out of the recorder and read the date and time penciled in Alex’s cursive, “Oct. 9 11:30 PM.”
So, that’s why Conner hadn’t been at the crime scene, he’d been sitting down with Alex over a cup of tea. Conner had given his testimony before the first cop car had appeared at the Rogue Bluffs. This explained the laughter we’d heard coming from the walkie-talkie at the edge of the cliff. This also explained Ashley Andrews’s eyes on the lighthouse lens, and how they’d been present one minute and gone the next. It also explained why the person I’d chased at the lighthouse hadn’t limped, while Tristen obviously suffere
d from the injury I’d instilled in him a year earlier. This had been a tandem effort from the beginning, Tristen and Conner. But why?
I listened to the remainder of the interview. Conner’s last statement stopped me in my tracks. I listened to it a third time:
Conner: Thomas was so close. At one point he was only a couple feet away from Tristen. This must be a hard pill to swallow for him.
There it was again, “Swallow.” It’d also been in Alex’s article. Goose bumps formed on my forearms a second time. But this time I knew why.
I took out my cell phone and dialed Gleason. He picked up and stated immediately, “I just got hold of Caitlin.”
Thank God. “Where was she?”
“She wouldn’t tell me. She said she needed some time to herself to sort some things out.”
I was relieved Caitlin was alive but I had more important fish to fry. I told him about Alex’s house and how it appeared Caitlin was in the clear, but Alex was in deep trouble. Then I asked him, “Did they do an autopsy on Kim Welding’s body?”
He scoffed, “How could they. They do an autopsy to see how people die. You don’t do an autopsy when the body is in thirty pieces. The person died because they’re in thirty pieces.”
Good point. “Where would her body be?”
“At the Bangor County morgue. Last I heard her parents hadn’t made a decision whether to cremate.”
“Meet me at the morgue in thirty minutes. No questions. Bring Caleb.”
I dialed Caitlin next. I apologized for abandoning her at the benefit and she simply admitted it’d been a mistake for the two of us to have gone together in the first place. I kept the information about Conner and Alex to myself and asked her to meet me at the morgue.
I drove into the parking lot of the Bangor County morgue and saw the FBI Caprice illegally parked near the entrance. The building was large, gray, and projected a cadence of death. Good location though. I pulled the heavy iron door open and was immediately struck by the stench of stale formaldehyde.
There were two gentlemen leaning against the wall of the barren main lobby, Caleb was one, Todd Gregory was the other. I asked, “Where’s Gleason?”
Gregory said flatly, “He didn’t think you’d want me alone with your sister.”
Good thinking. Although to be fair, Lacy was blind and would not be susceptible to Gregory’s likening to a Ken doll; same hair, same eyes, same height. I was set to pass along this insight when the front door opened and Caitlin pushed through. She looked at me and said, “What’s up?” I couldn’t help notice Caitlin was wearing a generous amount of Mary Kay’s Tough Front foundation.
I couldn’t help myself and asked, “When’s the last time you talked to Conner?”
She shook her head. “Not since the benefit.”
Bad news. I let this slip and Gregory said, “You want to tell us why we’re here?”
I confided to the group, “I need to take a look at Kim Welding’s body.”
Caitlin threw me an awkward glance, “Why? There isn’t much, and what there is isn’t pretty.”
“Just take me to her body.”
She shrugged and unlocked the steel cage door leading into a long beige corridor. Caleb quickened his step parallel to mine and asked, “What did you find out? What are you looking for?”
What I was about to do was a shot in the dark. I ignored Caleb’s question and said a quick prayer.
Kim’s cadaver was in slot 121. Caitlin pulled the handle and the pastel blue drawer exhaled. She unzipped the body bag and you could almost witness death try to escape. Caitlin said modestly, “I tried to piece her back together as best I could.”
The sight was repulsive. Kim Welding’s body was by no means complete. I looked at Caitlin and asked, “Where are her insides?”
“They’re all there. I shoved them back in the cavity before I sewed it up.” She pointed to a long section from her neck to just above her navel. “A bit of her long intestines is unaccounted for, but other than that, all her hardware is in there.”
She gave me an inquisitive glance as to say, “Why?”
I looked her sternly in the eye and said, “I need you to cut into her stomach.”
Gregory threw his hands up, “I have to step in here. Will you listen to yourself? You want to cut into this poor girl—listen to what you’re saying. Deface her body further so you can see what she ate before she was killed. Why? Why, would you do this?”
Caleb looked up from Kim’s cadaver and said, “Because Kim’s eyes are in there.”
Chapter 52
Caitlin, Caleb, and I wheeled the gurney to the autopsy room and helped get Kim’s cadaver situated on the cold steel table. The four of us put on surgical gloves and Caitlin extracted a scalpel from an array of tools resting on what looked to be a cafeteria issued lunch tray. As she touched the tip of the scalpel to Kim’s flesh, Caleb and I gave each other a strained glance. I wasn’t apprehensive of being wrong about the eyes being in Kim’s stomach, so much as I was the idea that if the eyes weren’t there, all hope was lost for Alex.
Gregory was at the foot of the table, mentally and literally biting his inner lip. I wasn’t altogether sure what was going through his mind as Caitlin flexed her wrist and the scalpel slid into the hardened flesh. Caitlin made a long incision, then administered two pairs of clips to hold back the thick area of fat tissue directly above the stomach.
I peered into the human crevasse; the stomach was beige, the color of Silly Putty, and smaller than I would have imagined. Caitlin applied a generous amount of force to the tissue and it folded open like a TV turkey.
Caleb looked up stupefied, “How? How did you know?”
Sitting amid a pile of gray mass were two large protuberances. They were cragged and yellow, but there was no denying the lumps of tissue were once eyes.
Caitlin looked up in disbelief, “Well, I’ll be.”
Gregory had made his way over for a good angle and shook his head in what I surmised was absolute awe at my deductive capabilities. The four of us stood in silence, taking in the implications of the sight.
Caleb broke the silence, “So, what exactly are her eyes seeing?”
Caitlin said she would run every test imaginable and get back to us by five. Caleb rode back with me, and once safely in the car he repeated his earlier question, “How did you know?”
I told him about the tape recorder and Conner’s involvement. He played Devil’s Advocate, but was unable to convince me of Conner’s innocence. There were a few inadequacies, and I tried Conner’s cell to have them pacified, but he wasn’t taking my calls.
Once back at 14 Surry Woods Drive, Caleb and I hopped out of the Range Rover and I whispered on the way up the steps, “Keep a lid on the Conner bug. I don’t want these idiots doing anything stupid. Best to keep them in the dark.”
He nodded and we pushed through the front door. Gleason was sitting at the table and said, “Gregory filled me in on most of the details. I can’t believe this shit. When and where did you get the hunch Kim’s eyes were hiding in her stomach?”
“I’m not sure. I started thinking maybe one of those fifty thousand birds had gotten hold of them. Bird—eat—stomach, I’m not sure. From there, it just popped in my head.”
He did a half shrug which either meant he bought my lie, or he didn’t really care in the first place. Gleason stood, “Do we have any leads on what her eyes may have been seeing? They were sitting in her stomach, there had to be something else in there.”
I think Gleason was expecting a key and some magical, indigestible map of sorts. I said, “Unfortunately, everything else was digested and a different shade of gray. Caitlin is doing some tests on the contents as we speak. Hopefully, something jumps out at her and we can get moving on this.”
I didn’t want to ask, but a driving force propelled to bad news brought about the question, “Heard anything from Conner?”
He shook his head and said, “There’s a good possibility we may never hear from Co
nner again.”
If only that were true.
Gregory walked through the door thirty minutes later with two pizza boxes. I guess he wanted to even the score for the breakfast burrito I’d bought him ASAP. Lacy came down the stairs and was into her second slice before I’d handed out paper towel squares. She took a third slice and retired to the living room to listen to the Mariners-Indians game seven playoff.
I was tinkering with the idea of having a quick chat with her, but I didn’t think she would take the news of having slept with a serial killer—or a serial killer’s secretary—lightly. I checked the clock, it was ten to five. Four hours until Alex’s date with death.
We couldn’t do much until we heard back from Caitlin, and I had a nut to crack with Gregory. I took a bite of sausage, leaned back in my chair and said, “I have a proposition for you Toddy. How’s this sound? I’ll cut you a check for three grand right now for Lacy’s lighthouse painting. You tell Charles Mangrove you were outbid, give him his twenty-five hundred back, and walk with five hundred for yourself.”
Gregory shook his head, “That’s not the painting I bid on for Director Mangrove.”
Then who? No, he wouldn’t. I choked on my bite of pizza for a few unpleasant seconds, before stammering, “You mean to tell me you bid on that painting for yourself.”
He took a bite of pizza to hide his smirk and said, “We must have the same taste in art.”
It was lucky for Gregory my cell phone rang, or he would have ate his next slice of pizza through a straw. I grabbed my cell off the table and flipped it open, “Prescott.”
“It’s Caitlin.”